VoiceBox Northern Ireland 2026

Online toolkit

Inside this toolkit you will find everything you need to participate in VoiceBox 2026:

Schools Pack

Links to templates contained within the school’s pack are also here for ease:

1. A4 VoiceBox poster
2. Letter to parents
3. School email
4. Participant certificate

Submit your joke

To submit your joke please complete our entry form online or below.

Contact us

For any competition related enquiries, please email us at voiceboxni@rcslt.org.

For any media enquiries, please email carl.whyte@mwadvocate.com.

Terms and conditions

About

1. The competition is organised by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and sponsored by Harper Collins.

Eligibility

1. Entry to the competition is open to children and young people enrolled in a school from Primary  1 to Year 14 at a school in Northern Ireland during the 2025/26 school year. Entries must be submitted by a responsible adult (parent/guardian or teacher)) on behalf of the child or young person. Entrants must be able to attend the National Final at the Northern Ireland Assembly on 19 May 2026 if they are selected as a finalist. The responsible adult will be asked to confirm the entrant’s availability upon submitting their entry.
   Each entry must be the sole entry from the child or young person’s school, unless it has both a primary and post primary setting. This could be determined as the winner of a school competition if one is held, or a child or young person who has been supported by their school to put themselves forward to take part. If a child or young person would like to participate and their school has not nominated an entry, the child or young person’s parent/guardian must contact the school about their intention to submit an entry and receive confirmation from the school that the child’s entry can be the sole entry from that school. Only one submission is allowed per school or per individual. When an entry is submitted by a third party (e.g. a teacher), prior to submitting the entry, on behalf of an entrant, the party submitting the entry shall be responsible for (i) obtaining parental consent (ii) providing a copy of the Rules to the parent/guardian to ensure the entrant’s compliance with the Rules. Evidence may be requested for consent, identity and eligibility. When an entry is submitted by a parent/guardian, the parent/guardian must confirm that their child or young person’s entry is the sole entry from their school. Evidence may be requested from the child or young person’s school to confirm their eligibility.

How to enter

1. Entrants must come up with a joke (please ensure that its delivery does not exceed 1 minute, however reasonable adjustments will be facilitated). The responsible adult submitting the joke on behalf of the entrant will be asked to provide the entrant’s name, school year and school name and ensure that they have parental permission to do so. The joke can be submitted as a video or audio file, or as written text.
2. VoiceBox is open to children and young people from Primary 1 through to Year 14, and applications can be submitted in Irish for those in Irish-medium schools. Participants from all backgrounds, languages and modalities are warmly encouraged to take part, including BSL and AAC.
3. Entrants telling their joke in a video or audio file must state their name, school year and school name at the start of the recording.
4. Video and audio files sent to us will not be shared outside of RCSLT and only be used to judge entries, after which the files will be destroyed.
5. Entries can only be accepted online.
6. The adult submitting the entrant’s joke will be required to approve the entry and agree to these rules on behalf of the entrant, by way of a check box in the online form. The adult may be the child or young person’s parent, guardian or teacher. The adult must provide their own contact and personal details (not the child or young person’s). Teachers submitting jokes on behalf of pupils must seek parental permission and if requested by RCSLT, provide evidence of permission in the event of an enquiry or complaint. For the shortlisted entries, if permission to enter was given by a teacher, RCSLT will contact the teacher and ask for confirmation of permission from the entrant’s parent or guardian.
7. Entry opens on Wednesday 18 February 2026 at 09:00 and closes on Friday 20 March 2026 at 17:00. Submissions received outside of this time frame will not be considered. RCSLT advises users not to wait until the last minute to submit entries. If submitters are experiencing technical failure or malfunction, they can contact voiceboxni@rcslt.org for support up until 20 March 2026 at 17:00.
8. Jokes submitted must not contain defamatory, obscene, offensive or any other unsuitable material; RCSLT reserves the right to disqualify entries containing such matter. Entries must be suitable to be told at the National Final in the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as broadcast or published by the media, for audiences of all ages, but for a child audience.

Judging criteria

1. Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Originality
• Composition
• Timing
• Enjoyment

Finalist round

1. All entries received will be divided into the following categories a) Primary School and b) Post Primary Schools.  Each group will then be judged by RCSLT NI staff and MW Advocate staff using score cards based on the judging criteria.
2. The finalists will be invited to tell their joke at the National Final in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

National Final round

1. Finalists will tell their jokes at the National Final in the Senate Chamber in Stormont, sponsored by the Speaker of the Assembly Edwin Poots in front of a guest judging panel. Three winners will be selected, an overall winner, a primary school winner and post primary school winner.

Prizes

1. Finalists will be invited to attend the National Final at the Senate Chamber in Stormont on 19 May 2026. Each finalist will be able to bring one parent/guardian OR their teacher to accompany them. We will request parental permission for pictures and/or videos of the finalists for use in the promotion of, during and following the National Final.
2. All finalists attending the National Final will receive prizes tbc
3. Additional prizes will be awarded to the three winners. They will receive a £25 gift card and £200 of books for their school.

General

1. The responsible adults of the successful finalists will be contacted by 31 March 2026; further proof of identity and eligibility may be requested at this stage.
2. Where travel costs would otherwise prevent participation, we will work with schools to explore what support may be available for the pupil and an accompanying adult to attend the National Final.
3. RCSLT’s decision at each stage of this competition, the finalist round and National Final round, is final. No correspondence will be entered into.
4. RCSLT reserves the right to (i) amend these rules or cancel this competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of its control, (ii) disqualify any entrant or winner who breaches these rules.
5. The parent/guardian of an entrant is deemed to have accepted these rules when giving permission to the entry of the relevant entrant.
6. If any of these clauses should be determined to be illegal, invalid, or otherwise unenforceable then it shall be severed and deleted from these rules and the remaining clauses shall survive, remain in full force and effect.
7. RCSLT reserves the right to terminate and revoke the prize if these rules are not adhered to.
8. The competition is run by RCSLT. Please see our privacy notice for further information about how we use any personal data collected as part of the competition.

The RCSLT takes the proper use and protection of your child or young person’s personal information seriously, and our aim is to be completely transparent about how and why we will use it. 

In the lead up to the event, we may announce competition finalists’ full names, year group, school and council area on the RCSLT website, RCSLT social media and printed/online publications, as well as in invitations to MLAs. We may also share these details with local and national media prior and following the event.

A RCSLT photographer will be present at the VoiceBox final, documenting the event and taking videos and photographs of the finalists individually/in groups. This media will be used for promotion of the VoiceBox event on the RCSLT website, RCSLT social media and printed/online publications. Alongside the videos and images, RCSLT may publish a finalist’s full name, year group, school and local council area.

Local and National media may attend the final and may capture photos or video footage of the event.

MLAs are invited to attend the VoiceBox final to support the competition and meet any member of their constituency who may be in attendance. MLAs may wish to use photographs/ videos taken at the event to support their political activity.

If you have any objections to images/videos been taken and used please contact us and we’ll use reasonable endeavours to not publish images of you. You can contact our team via voiceboxni@rcslt.org

Your information will only be retained and used for as long as necessary, and for the purposes we have specified.

Privacy statement

Introduction

This page is our Privacy Notice for the VoiceBox Northern Ireland competition. It has been written specifically to inform parents and guardians why the collection of the personal data of their child or young person is necessary as part of their competition entry and how we plan to use, store and protect your child’s data once we have it.

Who we are

We’re the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), the professional body for speech and language therapists in the UK. Our mission is to enable better lives for children and adults with communication needs.

Please visit our main website for further information about us and the work we do.

What is personal data?

Personal data is any information that could be used to identify a living person. At its simplest, this could be just a name and address; or, it could include a telephone number, email address, a picture or a recording.

Why do you need my child or young person’s personal data?

Your child or young person’s personal data will only be used for their entry to the competition. As we only allow one entry per child or young person, this ensures that we can keep track of everyone who has entered, then administer and judge the competition fairly.

Can you use personal data for anything?

No. We will only use your child or young person’s personal data for the reasons we have mentioned above and only for the duration of the competition entry process. We never pass this data to third parties or use it for reasons we have not told you about.

Can anyone else see my personal data?

The only people who will have access to your child or young person’s personal data are the small group of RCSLT staff based in our Northern Ireland Office. If you would like to speak to the team, please contact us. The judging panel will be shown entry videos or audio submissions during a dedicated meeting, but will not be given copies of your child’s data.

Do you keep my personal data forever?

We only keep your personal data for as long as we need it to run the competition. Unsuccessful applications will be permanently deleted after the competition shortlisting has been completed. Applications of entrants who are shortlisted for the final will be kept until the event has taken place, after which they will be deleted too.

Do I have a say in what happens to my child or young person’s personal data?

Yes, you do.  Everyone has rights in relation to control how their personal data can be used. This includes the right to withdraw consent at any time.

The Information Commissioners Office provides summary of these individual rights and how they can be enacted. We also provide further information and contact details in our main Privacy Notice should you wish to enact any of these rights or withdraw consent.

Who makes sure you follow all the rules?

All of our staff receive training on data protection and the RCSLT also has an appointed Data Protection Officer, to ensure that our staff do everything necessary to keep your data safe. You are welcome to contact us if you would like to speak to us about any of the information in this notice.

If you are unhappy with the information we have provided, you may contact the body that is responsible for overseeing data protection in the UK, the Information Commissioners Office.